The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Jan. 18, 2019 ·
https://patriotpost.us/digests/60638-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“The construction applied … to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power … ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.” —Thomas Jefferson (1798)

IN BRIEF

On Thursday, mere hours before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was set to embark on a planned international trip, she received the following letter:

Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate. I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.

I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!

The letter was signed, “Sincerely, Donald Trump.”

Trump’s move was clearly a response to Pelosi’s political theatrics earlier this week when she threatened to postpone the annual State of the Union Address until after the partial government shutdown is ended due to bogus “concerns” over security.

Sen. Ted Cruz was spot on regarding Pelosi’s motivation for postponing the SOTU: “It’s not a substantive disagreement; it’s that they’re terrified of their extreme left wing, who hates Trump. And that’s why we’re having a shutdown. So why does Nancy Pelosi not want the State of the Union? Because the State of the Union is an enormous platform for the president to speak directly to the American people, and she doesn’t want people focusing on the substance of this issue. She wants their information to come from the mainstream media rather than the president.”

Mark Alexander speculates further: Pelosi may also be “concerned that new left-wing members of Congress will act poorly during Trump’s remarks.” Recall how foolishly the Democrats behaved during Trump’s SOTU speech last year.

Pelosi and her fellow Democrats are in unfamiliar territory — they’re facing off against a Republican president who is willing to use Democrat hardball tactics. It’s as if they are fighting against their own shadow. It’s also important to note that Trump postponed a trip for members of his Cabinet to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, likewise citing the shutdown. Trump is sending a clear message: Everyone stays in Washington until this shutdown is resolved.

Regarding Robert Mueller’s investigation and the convictions of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, I wrote last August that the investigation doesn’t “have anything to do with ‘Russian collusion,’ but the worms are out, and in the case of Cohen, so much for ‘lawyer-client privilege.’ … As his former attorney, Cohen knows where, on Trump’s behalf, he hid corporate and personal legal skeletons.”

To date, Trump’s Cohen problem has centered on campaign-finance issues. But in late November, when it became clear that Cohen’s plea deal included perjury charges related to his congressional testimony about the timing of discussions about a future Russian building project, there were questions about why Cohen would lie about the timing.

A report broke last night that Cohen lied at Trump’s direction. According to the Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney, “President Trump now stands accused of directing his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about Trump’s attempt to court Vladimir Putin during the campaign and build a hotel in Moscow.”

During his presidential primary campaign, Trump asserted that he had no “business” in Russia at the time. It can be argued that it was fair enough for Trump to make that claim, because an ongoing conversation about the prospect of a future project does not constitute “business” in the present, as if Trump owned a property in Russia at the time. Trump has admitted he had conversations with Russia about a project.

However, given that Cohen admitted to lying to Congress about when the 2016 discussions regarding a potential future project in Russia ended, if there is irrefutable evidence that Trump instructed Cohen to lie to Congress about it, that does constitute suborning perjury — a serious offense. Keep an eye on this one.

That speculation notwithstanding, now that Democrats control Congress, expect to hear a renewed chorus of howls to investigate and impeach Trump.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) finally purged the Women’s March from its ranks — but only because the political optics had made the action unavoidable.

National Review’s Jack Crowe says that the DNC “has joined a number of prominent progressive advocacy groups in withdrawing its support for the Women’s March in the wake of reports detailing anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering and support for notorious bigot Louis Farrakhan among its leadership.” This year’s Women’s March will occur Saturday in DC, but with relatively meager support.

“The list includes fewer than half of the 500 sponsors who supported the march last year,” Crowe reveals, “and many of the most prominent past supporters, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, Emily’s List, and NARAL, are among the defectors. The DNC was initially listed as a sponsor when the list went up on Sunday but it, along with the NAACP and the National Organization for Women, were removed at some point thereafter. The DNC’s withdrawal came after Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory defended her past description of Farrakhan as the ‘GOAT’ or ‘greatest of all time’ during a Monday morning appearance on ABC’s The View.”

Farrakhan, of course, would love nothing more than to exterminate the Jews, whom he considers to be insects. As recently as October, he groused, “You know what [my foes] do: call me an anti-Semite. Stop it! I’m anti-Termite.” This prompted even Chelsea Clinton to fire back, “Comparing Jews to termites is anti-Semitic, wrong and dangerous.” According to The Washington Free Beacon, “He has also attacked ‘that Satanic Jew,’ called Jews ‘the mother and father of apartheid,’ and said that ‘when you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door.’”

Tellingly, the entire Women’s March leadership is composed of bigots. As our Nate Jackson reported in November, “Theresa Shook, founder of the Women’s March, called for Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, and Carmen Perez of Women’s March, Inc. to step down because they ‘have steered the Movement away from its true course.’” All this and more eventually forced the DNC’s hand. And while it made the right decision not to sponsor the March, it had nothing to do with morality or conscience. This was all about damage control.

Ironically, while the Women’s March takes place tomorrow, a far larger and more endearing event is happening today in DC — the March for Life. These gatherings occurred back to back last year as well. As we wrote at the time, “One side features love and science. The other has distorted those things beyond recognition.” This year is no different. Nor will the media coverage be any different. As columnist Gary Bauer observed earlier this week, “While the media will ignore the March for Life, there will be wall-to-wall coverage of the Women’s March.”

The biggest irony of all? While the DNC feigns concern over Farrakhan’s hatred of the Jews, the Women’s March would share an alarming ideological kinship with him even if its leadership wasn’t going to bat for him. Both the Women’s March and Farrakhan consider certain people to be disposable. The Leftmedia and DNC are incapable of acknowledging the parallel.

TODAY’S CARTOON

OPINION IN BRIEF

Jonah Goldberg: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says a wall at the border would be an immorality. Logically, this is nonsense, too. There are walls there now. Does she want them torn down? Walls are inanimate objects, and whatever morality we ascribe to them is in accordance with their purpose. A scalpel is good when it is used to save a life; it is evil when it is used to take one. To compare — as many have done — a border wall designed to keep people out to the Berlin Wall, which was designed to keep people in, is an exercise in asininity. I’m reminded of my old boss William F. Buckley’s demolition of such moral equivalence: ‘To say that the CIA and the KGB engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.’ But this is what happens when you follow politics like it’s a form of entertainment.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “No matter whose lips that would speak, they must be free and ungagged. The community which dares not protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves.” —Wendell Phillips (1811-1884)

A blind squirrel finds a nut: “A wall … that protects people is not immoral. I think the issue is whether it works.” —House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer

Dezinformatsiya: “Let’s talk about [Trump’s] conduct in office, the way he speaks about people and targets individual Americans. He’s intimidating witnesses. He’s calling African nations s—hole countries. He’s blowing up alliances. He’s taking the notes away from the interpreter. The list goes on and on and on. What more does the House need in order to debate fitness for office?” —MSNBC’s Katy Tur

Non Compos Mentis: “Karen Pence is the wife of the vice president. She’s teaching art at a place where the application requires would-be employees to initial next to a list of beliefs, including certain moral misconduct, [which] includes homosexual or transgender identity as being disqualifying or any other violation of the unique roles of male and female. … The point is that the value of exclusion is embraced here, and our vice president’s wife, in the place where she is, it does the same thing, and it adds to the anxiety for people around why this White House, why this president doesn’t speak out against a member of his party [Steve King] that embraces a message that isolates the same kinds of people that are being singled out where the vice president’s wife works.” —CNN’s Chris Cuomo

Friendly fire I: “I cannot imagine having such mild feelings over such a furious hatred of an entire people. [Louis Farrakhan] calls us termites. I’m heartbroken but im [sic] gonna stay hopeful because I don’t wanna give up on Tamika [Mallory].” —Sarah Silverman regarding the Women’s March co-chair

Friendly fire II: “I must walk away from the national Women’s March organization, and join local marches who distanced themselves from national leaders allied with bigotry. We must demand the same principles from our movement as we do from our society.” —Debbie Wasserman Schultz

The BIG Lie: “Let’s be clear: crisis pregnancy centers are NOT health centers. They lie to people about medical facts.” —Planned Parenthood Action

And last… “Here’s what separates the March For Life from any other march: nobody in attendance is marching for themselves. Nobody is demanding rights or privileges for themselves. Everyone is marching on behalf of those who cannot march.” —Matt Walsh

https://patriotpost.us/articles/60630-friday-short-cuts

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